Steam OS
I feel like I am late to the party when it comes to talking about this announcement. Yesterday seemed to be the big day of it spreading out onto various blogs both professional and private. At this very moment… I am not really sure what to think about it. Admittedly I am a PC developer, I write code for Microsoft products, I play games that run under windows, and I have never found a reasonable replacement for Photoshop. All of those things mean I am pretty much chained to windows as a platform goes. The biggest of those however is the fact that it is a pain in the ass to get my games running under Wine in Linux.
While the Microsoft developer portion will likely never go away anytime soon, being able to reliably play all the games I want under Linux would make me likely kick windows to the curb as a home operating system, at least on my main gaming machine. The problem is… steam has literally thousands of games in its catalog… but only roughly 200 of them run on Linux. The vast majority of those are small indie titles, that are fun, but not the meat that the PC gamer is looking for. So the real challenge will be for Valve to get major developers to support their Steam OS on an even playing field with the consoles.
Good For Linux
Linux has always been an extreme niche community. The problem with Linux as a whole is the freedom of choice that is a positive for the serious user, is a massive negative to broad based adoption. Too much choice confuses the average consumer, and vendors don’t like not having a clear winner they can invest money in. Old fights like Gnome vs KDE and Ubuntu vs Redhat etc have always stunted the growth potential of what otherwise is an extremely mature operating system, more than ready for primetime.
While Linux has floundered at becoming a viable desktop operating system for the majority of America, I feel like a gaming machine is a niche it CAN conquer. Windows 8 licenses start at $100 and go up from there. I know no gamer that would not be willing to switch to a free operating system, and spend that hundred dollars elsewhere on games or gaming stuff. If I could get the games I want to play, running reliably and without fiddling under a Linux based operating system… I would kick windows to the curb without a second thought.
Ultimately I am going to have to find a replacement for Photoshop as it is… so that piece is no longer the hurdle it once was. With Adobe switching to a monthly subscription fee, that is just too much bullshit for me to deal with on a regular basis just to be able to comfortably make images. I am not making any money from Photoshop, and therefor I just cannot justify the cost. I have always had access to it through my work machine, so I have always kept my home version a few releases behind the curve. But with the licensing mess for the foreseeable future, it is making Gimp and namely GimpShop that much more appealing.
In Gaben We Trust
Basically steam has done this miraculous thing as far as I am concerned. They have gotten me to not only tolerate… but LOVE DRM. If I have a choice to buy something through steam, or through a secondary retailer like green man gaming that provides a steam code… I will always do it. I like having my entire games library organized in one spot, that is easy to download and play whenever I feel like it from each of my machines. Valve and Steam have absolutely won me over with dirt cheap pricing and truly epic sales. So while I mostly abuse their sales… when it does come time for a title to be released that I care enough about to pay full price… I will almost always gravitate to buying it through them.
Right now if ANYONE can bring enough gravitas behind Linux gaming… it would be Steam. They have the best chance to make this work, because they provide what every games company has to have to make a new operating system work… a prebuilt retail outlet. You can say whatever you want about Steam, but I feel like they are doing far more good for the gamers than they are doing harm. I know publishers really do not like dealing with them… Origin is the evidence of EA breaking out on their own to avoid the “Steam Cut”. However I really don’t see any of these splinter groups making enough of a dent to be worthy of jumping ship. Everyone universally hates Origin, as much as they seem to love Steam.
What This Means
If anyone can make Linux gaming viable, it will be Gaben, and as a result I am cautiously optimistic about this. A lot of the posts yesterday keyed in on the whole concept of bringing steam to the living room. For me that is not the significance here, and not really something I would want to do anyways. The majority of the reason why I don’t play consoles more than I do is because it is chained to a television, and not something I can do either on my gaming rig upstairs or my laptop. Sure there will be the occasional gamer that wants to hook up a steam box and play PC games like they used to play console games. That is totally cool and awesome that it might be a reality.
For me however this is about unshackling PC gaming from the “Windows Tax”. I would say probably 95% of what I use my PCs at home falls into one of two categories. Firstly there is gaming, and up until now that has been entirely a windows based activity. Secondly there is using web based technologies… these are 100% platform agnostic, and if Steam OS has Chrome I can pretty much do anything I would ever care to do here. I no longer use a traditional word processor and have converted to Google Drive for everything I do for myself. I use Live Writer to do my blog, but there are numerous really solid Linux packages that do the same thing. So if the gaming worked awesome on Linux… I would have nothing left chaining me to the windows operating system. As far as running visual studio, I could always Virtual Machine that… or just remote desktop into my work machine.
Wrapping Up
I need to wrap things up and get on the road, but at this point we really don’t know many details other than the fact that something called Steam OS exists. There are supposedly three more big announcements waiting in the wings regarding this. Right now I am cautiously optimistic, but if this turns out to be nothing but a set top box… I will ultimately give zero fucks. I am hoping for a viable windows gaming replacement. Anyways…. I hope you all have a great day ahead of you. My mother is having surgery today, so hopefully that will go extremely well.
I’ve never felt a particular need to “kick Windows to the curb” for that matter, either. I get it, though. Microsoft is the Big Evil Gorilla and they need to be taken down a notch. Nevermind that Apple is far more evil and controlling but where PC Gaming is concerned, they aren’t a factor yet so we don’t care.
I like certain aspects of Linux but gaming was never one of them. I managed to get WoW (back in the 1.x days) to run fairly flawlessly in WINE but that was one of the only games I could say that about.
And right now the state of OpenGL is just not up to snuff with DX11, despite what a few rigged tests (including Valve’s own) might try to convince you. Also needed: OpenGL developers! Also needed: OpenGL drivers worth a crap! That might happen someday but until then a lot of money will have to be made selling OpenGL games that are, quite simply, inferior in every test to its DX11 counterpart. But hey, that was the case in an awful lot of PS3 games and that platform has its rabid fanbase…
“I feel like they are doing far more good for the gamers than they are doing harm.”
Steam is the rope gamers depend on in order to hang themselves. In this, the rope is blameless, but insanely attractive, and THAT comes with it’s own brand of harm.
One you buy into the SteamOS ecosystem, there’s no backing out. The best thing about Steam in it’s current incarnation isn’t that it’s treating gamers particularly well, it’s that it’s not treating gamers any specific way at all. It’s a neutral conduit through which we can conveniently obtain our games. And the best part isn’t the sales, it’s that there is a version for Windows, for Mac, and for Linux. There isn’t parity in the catalogs, but no one is railroaded except by their own desire.
SteamOS means that Valve is saying “screw it” to neutrality; it’s a self serving move because there is absolutely nothing (that we know of right now) that a dedicated Steam operating system provides that we can’t get form Steam Desktop right now. This is Valve wanting to get in on that sweet, sweet walled garden action that we’ve willfully accepted in the smartphone market before the next gen consoles, and before the bubble bursts.
If Valve can convince pubs/devs to develop for SteamOS, they’re going to want primacy in exchange for being part of the biggest distro network around. That means it’ll be Linux or nothing, or Linux first, and MAYBE other platforms later. Geeks must be elated, but there goes choice right out the window. Will EA ditch Origin and come to SteamOS on it’s knees with chocolates and flowers? What happens to those federated indie distro networks like Desura, or online retailers like GoG.com? Right now, we have a choice of where to buy stuff, even if many people choose not to use it. I think that there has to be some element of competition that’s keeping Valve honest in this regard. I’d hope that by creating their own universe where they don’t have to compete with anyone doesn’t dull that, but absolute power, etc.
I guess I don’t take quite as nihilist of a viewpoint on this whole thing, but I can totally get where you are coming from. I don’t think SteamOS will ever become a big enough player to offset other platforms, but I would love to see Linux as a viable option. Granted this is my own desire to kick windows to the curb talking. I guess I am just tanking a more optimistic stance while waiting for further details.
Tales of the Aggronaut – In Gaben We Trust – http://t.co/t5chfTiI9Z my thoughts about the #SteamOS announcement